Home / Summaries / Research Methods for Business Students / research-population-journals

Critically reviewing the literature

Q: Why do you need to be careful with newspapers?

Newspapers may contain bias in their coverage, be it political, geographical or personal. Reporting can also be inaccurate, and you may not pick up any subsequent amendment. Also, the news presented is filtered depending on events at the time.

29 important questions on Critically reviewing the literature

What is the inductive research approach about?

Data to theory. Moves from observation to the idea.

Data are collected and a theory developed as a result of the data analysis.

What is a concept?

A concept is a developed idea about a phenomenon that you want to study.

e.g. Customer Satisfaction, Service Quality

What is theory? (as in conceptual models)

It is a formulation regarding the cause and effect relationships between two or more concepts (or variables), which may or may not have been tested.

e.g. Higher service quality leads to higher customer satisfaction

What are refereed academic journals?

Evaluated by academic peers prior to publication to assess their quality and suitability

What are non-refereed academic journals?

Most non-refereed academic journals will have an editor and possibly and editorial board with subject knowledge to select articles.

What are trade journals?

They are published by trade organisations or aimed at particular industries or trades such as catering or mining.

What four types of variables are there, and explain them?

Independent; causes changes in the dependent variable
Dependent; changes in response to changes in other variables
Mediating; explains the relationship between independent and dependent variables.
Moderating; affects the strength of the relationship between two variables.

Why do you need to be careful with newspapers?

Newspapers may contain bias in their coverage, be it political, geographical or personal. Reporting can also be inaccurate, and you may not pick up any subsequent amendment. Also, the news presented is filtered depending on events at the time.

What are cofernence proceedings?

Conference proceedings, sometimes referred to as symposia, are often published and unique titles within journals and books

What is a theses?

Theses are unique and so for a major research project can be a good source of detailed information; they will also be a good source of further references. But they can be difficult to locate.

What are the two types of validity? And give a brief explanation.

Internal validity: when your research accurately demonstrates a causal relationship between two variables.
External validity: can a study's research findings be generalised to other relevant settings or groups?

What are the two validation techniques? Give a brief explanation.

Triangulation

Using two or more independent sources of data and methods of collection within one study to ensure that the data are telling you what you think they are telling you.

Participant or member validation

Taking or sending research data back to participants to allow them to confirm its accuracy, by permitting them to comment on and correct it to validate it.

Before commencing your literature search, the book suggests that you undertake further planning by writing down your search strategy and, if possible, discussing it with your project tutor what does this include?

- the parameters of your search
- the search terms and phrases you intend to use
- the online databases and search engines you intend to use
- the criteria you intend to use to select the relevant and useful studies from all the items you find

With defining the parameters of your search you need to be clear about a lot of topics but what topics do you need to be clear about according to Bell and Waters?

- language of publication
- subject area
- business sector
- geographical area
- publication period
- literature type

What are the two types of reliability? And give a brief explanation.

Internal reliability: ensuring consistency during a research project, may be achieved by using more than one researcher within a research project to conduct interviews or observations and to analyse data to be able to evaluate the extent to which they agree about the data and its analysis.
External reliability: whether your data collected techniques and analytic procedures would produce consistent findings if they were repeated by you on another occasion or if they were replicated by another researcher.

What is important at the stage generating your search terms?

To read both articles by key authors and recent review articles in the area of your research.

What three types of samples are there, and explain them?

Population; a complete set of cases or group members

Always identify your target population

Census; collection and analysis from every possible case or group member in the population

Always identify your target population

Sample; sub-group or part of a population

Which two types of sampling are there? And give a brief explanation.

Probability sampling; when the chance of each case being selected from the population is known and equal
Non-probability sampling; when the chance of each case being selected from the population is not known, and not equal.

What is a sampling frame?

A sampling frame is a list or database from which a sample can be used. In market research terms, a sampling frame is a database of potential respondents that can be drawn from to invite to take part in a given research project.

If there is a sampling frame -> always use probability sampling.

What are relevance trees?

They provide a useful method of brining some form of structure to your literature search and of guiding your search process

What can relevance thees help you to decide?

- those search terms that are most relevant to your research question and objectives
- those areas you will search first and which your search will use later
- these areas that are more important - these tend to have more branches

How do you construct your relevance tree?

1) start with your research question or an objective at the top level
2) identify two or more subject areas that you think are important
3) further subdivide each major subject area into sub-areas that you think are of relevance
4) further divide the sub-areas into more precise sub-areas that you think are of relevance
5) identify those areas that you need to search immediately and those you particularly need to focus on.
6) As your reading and reviewing progress, add new areas to your relevance tree.

What is the Quota, and the Haphazard in non-probability sampling?

Quota; represents certain characteristics of the population chosen by the researcher. Often used for structured interviews.
Haphazard; selecting your cases without any obvious method or organization.

e.g. Facebook polls

What are the 8 forms of plagiarism according to Oxford?

1) Quoting someone else's work, word for word, without acknowledgement
2) cutting and pasting text
3) paraphrasing someone else's work by altering a few words or chain their order or closely following the structure of their argument without acknowledgement
4) collaboration with others and not attributing the assistance received
5) inaccurately referencing
6) failing to acknowledge the assistance
7) using materials written by others
8) auto or self platiarising

What is Volunteer in non-probability sampling?

Volunteer is divided into two sections:

Snowball; participants are volunteered to be part of the research rather than being chosen. used when the target population is difficult to access. Contact someone within your target population and then ask them for help to identify other cases and soon.

The problems of bias are huge, as respondents are most likely to identify other potential respondents who are similar to themselves, resulting in a homogeneous sample.

Self-selection; Publicise your need for cases and select cases based on who contacts you. Post an add and collect data from those who respond.

Explain the difference between cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.

Cross-sectional studies are about the study of a particular phenomenon at a particular time (snapshot), whilst longitudinal studies are about the study of change and development (diary).

What is the role of the external researcher?

The external researcher intends to undertake research in one or a few organisations you will need to negotiate acces to the organisation(s) and to those from whom you would like to collect data.

What is the law of large numbers about?

The large numbers theorem states that if the same experiment or study is repeated independently a large number of times, the average of the results of the trials must be close to the expected value. -> their sample mean (average) approaches their theoretical mean.

When does haphazard sampling occurs? (non-probability sampling)

Haphazard sampling occurs when sample cases are selected without any obvious principles of organisation in relation to your research question, the most common form being convenience sampling (also known as availability sampling).

The question on the page originate from the summary of the following study material:

Research Methods for Business Students | 9781292208787 | M N K Saunders, et al

View summary

A unique study and practice tool
Never study anything twice again
Get the grades you hope for
100% sure, 100% understanding

Remember faster, study better. Scientifically proven.